Too Close
by Spooksdarkhero
Summary: Hawkeye is watching the Black Widow. Everyone seems to have a story about how Clint and Natasha first met and this is mine.


Too Close

You can vary your distance.

You can be as distant as you like or as close as you feel you need to be. You can watch from across the street, the table right next to them or from the other side of a big lake and you will still see the same things. It really doesn't matter your distance but there is one golden rule. Never get too close.

Clint often gets these kind of assignments. Follow a target, learn all you can about them, send all the information you have back to H.Q, then either kill them or stop following them. Simple really. That is the way it goes and this assignment is no different. He has sent all that he has seen and knows about his latest target, everything that he can think would be useful and now is waiting for his next orders.

You can learn a lot about someone by following them. It is amazing how people behave when they do not think that anyone is looking at them. _Hawkeye, _first it was his nickname and now it is his codename as it just stuck and summed him up rather well according to Agent Coulson. He is so good at watching and seeing every little detail like a Hawk. It is why Clint is ordered to do these assignments as often as he does. You learn their patterns. Their lifestyle. Who their friends are. What a person believes in. What a person does when they are own their own.

On foot you can follow someone from any distance. You try and stay out of their line of sight. If your target doubles back and walks towards you don't panic. Let it play out. You will draw attention to yourself by reacting and Clint hates drawing attention to himself. He is much happier being away from attention.

Clint has been following his latest target for weeks now. Learning her patterns and routine until he can spot every little detail about her. He knows her mannerisms when she is on her guard. He knows how quick she can move when she needs to. Knows how much she hates talking to her superiors and getting her orders. Knows how little pleasure she gets from killing. _'Black Widow' _is her alias and it suits her as she as deadly as one when she needs to be and when she wants to be.

The waiting is the hard part. Your mind wanders. You start to wonder about your targets. Are they as evil as the file made them out to be? Do the men have families? He would be a robot if he did not ask himself these questions from time to time and while training can program you body to do many things it cannot strip you of these thoughts. Clint maybe the best at what he does but he is still not inhuman. He has even wondered what his own life would look like from afar. Would he be the good guy or the bad guy? However he has never broken his golden rule. He has never got too close.

Natasha is alone. She is always alone. Sure she will flirt and use her looks to be with a man when her mission or assignment calls for it but Clint has mostly seen her alone. She is alone as he is. No friends. No family. No compilations. That is how S.H.I.E.L.D likes it and that is clearly how she likes it.

Natasha is wearing a mask. Clint recognises this as he sees the same mask staring back at him in the mirror every time he looks into one. Keep people close but never too close. That way you can stay focused. Stay one step ahead of true pain. True pain is not losing a leg or an arm it is losing someone close to you. Natasha wears her mask well but he can still see behind it. See how damaged she is… oh how he loves the damaged ones. They are the ones that are torn between what has clearly been drilled into them and what has been struggling to survive inside them all that time. The good inside them, maybe only a shred but it is there none the less and Clint can see it inside Natasha.

More weeks have passed and now he has his orders. A kill order. They usually are. Why send one of the world's greatest assassins and someone who is the best shot with a bow and arrow to just follow someone around? Sometimes it has been different and he has walked away without taking aim and firing. Despite all the things, the crimes that his targets have done Barton was still ordered to walk away. S.H.I.E.L.D probably keeps what Barton told them under lock and key and saves it for a day when blackmailing his targets is more useful than making them stop what they are doing. Some peace keeping force.

He is in her apartment now slowly creeping around. It is small but respectable. He has noted that there is little in the way of personal items. No photos. No books that might be her favourite. Nothing that would give one an insight into the person that is Natasha. This isn't home for anyone, its just a place that someone retreats to when they want to be alone.

She is standing before him in her living room in front a table. Clint wonders for a second if she has been waiting for him, is he walking into a trap? No he cannot be as he made sure of it. One can never be too relaxed and lazy about such things in his line of work. But has he really caught her off guard or has seem be expecting something like this?

"I figured they would send someone taller to kill me" Natasha says flatly. _Well that answers that question_ Clint thinks to himself

"Your living proof that small things can be just as deadly as big things." Clint smiled at her.

Natasha looks surprised for just the briefest of moments before keeping her face netural but it was there none the less "So you have been watching me."

"For awhile now." Clint replied nodding.

"You must be very good I can usually tell when I am being tailed." Natasha said sizing him up for a second time coming to a slightly more respectful conclusion he figures.

"I'm above average," Clint jokes "You know who I work for?"

"Yes. S.H.I.E.L.D isn't it?" Clint nods she is smart girl "Tell me will killing me bring peace?" Natasha asks him. She is calm. Clint has had men twice her size crying and begging before him. Not her.

"One less killer in the world won't hurt" Clint shrugs slightly. Natasha stares back him her jaw tightens ever so slightly. He knows that there is a loaded gun on the table behind her. Is she working out how she can use it before he fires his arrow at her?

"That is all that you are right? A killer? A weapon your superiors use when they want someone dead?" Clint continues at her.

"I'm not the one pointing a arrow at a woman." Natasha fires back. She certainly will not make this easy on him.

"You didn't answer my question." Clint told her. _What are you doing Barton? _he asks himself.

"You're the one who has been watching me haven't you?! You must have seen what I am!" Natasha argues with him.

"I have seen what you can do yes. You can kill, shoot and fight better than anyone I have seen but I have also seen your eyes." Clint replies calmly.

"And what do you see in my eyes?" Natasha asks.

"The same thing in mine. Pain. Your damaged. Sick and tired of your life. Of the death you cause and the murders they force you to do. I can help you. I can offer you something better." Clint is determined to prove to her wrong in her belief about her herself. It took him a long time to realise he was more than a simple killer. Than even someone like him could make a difference. Allowing yourself to be open to the idea was the first step and it was one of the hardest steps to take.

"What S.H.I.E.L.D?" Natasha laughed.

"It's a start" Clint smiled lowering his bow and arrow.

Clint was doing it, he was breaking the his golden rule. Never get too close. That is the rule. Don't get too close to your targets, to their stories and to their life. He has had big men, powerful men beg for their lifes, offer his their riches and promise him so much more he spared their lifes. So why was he making a change with her… after all she wouldn't be the first woman he had killed in cold blood.

It was because Clint saw too many things in her life that were too similar to his own. Given a push or nudge here or there and she would be in front of him with a gun to his head about to pull the trigger. It was because Clint was getting of fighting the war without winning any battles. It was because Clint wanted to see if the human race was still worth fighting for.

Clint lowers his bow and arrow completely. She is as quick as him he knows this so if she were to make a this a fight it could easily go either way. The ball is in her court. Natasha looks at him and he stares back. She is still tense as she has been since he saw her. Still on her guard ready for anything.

"It's a start," she replies calming visually relaxing her stance.

Clint smiles. He has just broken his first golden rule. He has gotten too close to Natasha.

_Wonder if I will break my second golden rule? _He thinks to himself _and fall in love with her. _

Fin.


End file.
